Note 24 — Chapter VII · CAMPAIGN OF 1812: STORMING OF CIUDAD RODRIGO.

Costello (p. 140) tells how, after the taking of Fort San Francisco, many of the French wounded prisoners were stripped naked by the Portuguese Caçadores. One of them, a sergeant, on being marched in, and seeing his officer in the same plight with himself, “ran to embrace him, and, leaning his head on his shoulder, burst into tears over their mutual misery. Captain Smith, the General’s aide-de-camp, being present, generously pulled forth his pocket-handkerchief and wrapped it round the sergeant’s totally naked person, till further covering could be obtained.”